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SLAVERY 



SOUTHERN METHODISM: 



TWO SERMONS 











PEEACHED IN THE 



i:t|oM^t C|Err| iit l^^tomEit, (i^argia. 



BY THE PASTOE, 



REV. JOHN H. CALDWELL, A. M., 

OF THE GEORGIA CONFERENCE. 



PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

1865. 



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Ur" 



8863 




SLAVERY 



SOUTHERN METHODISM: 



TWO SERMONS 



PBEACHED IN THE 



^rt|olri^t C^ual] iit l:ri\)mait, ^m^m. 



REV. JOHN H. CALDWELL, A. M. 



OF THE GEORGIA CONFERE 




PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 

1865. 



PREFACE 



The first of the following discourses was delivered 
on Sunday, the 11th of June. The congregatiou was 
a very large one. I had proceeded only to the point 
w^here I stated my conviction, that if the institution 
of slavery had been right God would not have suf- 
fered it to be overthrown, when some of the x^eople 
began to leave the church. I had not passed through 
all my points of exception to the abuses of the system, 
when many others left. Others, who stood all this 
very well, became very indignant as I proceeded to 
describe the domination of the slave power ; some 
left the church, while others remained to express by 
their looks and half-suppressed murmurs, I might say 
almost hisses, tlieir decided disapprobation of ray 
course; so before I got through at least a third of 
the congregation had left, among them some of my 
best friends and some of the wealthiest and most in- 
fluential members and supporters of the Church. The 
sensation exhibited by my audience, so far from intim- 



IV PREFACE. 



idating, only seemed to inspire me witli new ardor, 
BO I won for myself the imen viable reputation of a 
comparison with Beecher : " Beeclier," it was said, 
*' could not have surpassed it in fury of denuncia- 
tion." Long before the sermon was concluded, the 
following charges were circulating in the streets and 
throuirh the town acrainst me : That I was an aboli- 
tionist; that I had declared myself such for five 
years, but was afraid to own it before ; that the pres- 
ence of Federal bayonets iu the town now enabled 
me to declare it with impunity ; that I was a base 
hypocrite for cloaking such sentiments while I was an 
avowed friend and defender of the South during the 
war ; that I had now forsaken my friends and coun- 
try, and had gone over to the enemy, like a detestable 
traitor ; that I was at least inconsistent with all my 
former professions and acts. In the mean time, the 
congregation of the Baptist church was dismissed, 
and some of the people, hearing the above-mentioned 
representations, came to the Methodist church to hear 
for themselves the astounding doctrine. They came 
in time only to hear the latter part of the sermon, 
^diich, disconnected from the former part, confirmed 
them in the opinion that all they heard of what had 
gone before was true. The commotion that succeed- 
ed during the following week surpassed anything 
that had ever been witnessed in the town. The peo- 
ple were maddened, enraged, and some even made 



PREFACE. V 

threats of personal violence. A strange frenzy seized 
the popular mind, and some even attempted to excite 
the soldiers against me, alleging that 1 had charged 
them with stealing more property within the last four 
years than all the negroes put together had ever be- 
fore stolen in all their lives ! During all this time, 
however, ray own mind was as calm and serene as a 
summer evening. I felt no anger, no resentment, but, 
sinking into the depths of these words, "In quietness 
and in confidence shall be your strength," I went 
calmly on in the preparation of the second sermon. 
I knew in whom I had trusted, and that I had been 
moved by an irrepressible impulse (some would scoff 
were I to call it divine influence) to preach the ser- 
mons. I merely alluded in the second to some of the 
misrepresentations of the first discourse. I have taken 
my answer to them out of the sermon, as interrupting 
the course of consecutive argument, and now embody 
my reply to the principal objections in the following 
calm address to my congregation, and to my friends 
at a distance, who have heard the above-mentioned 
misrepresentations. 

1. As to the charge of being an abolitionist, I will 
let the sermons answer that objection. They speak 
for themselves. 

2. The charge of " inconsistency " is based on the 
expression, " long-pent-up convictions," and my dec- 
laration, mentioned once or twice, that I could not 



VI PREFACE. 

formerly preach on this subject as I can now. From 
ray earliest observation of '' the great evil of slavery " 
I have had "convictions" that there were many, 
many things in the institution that were wrong. The 
Chm'ch to which I belong, and of which I have been a 
minister for nearly twenty-three years, had the same 
sort of " convictions," and so declared itself for a 
jjcriod of seventy-four years. Our delegates to the 
General Conference of 1844, declared in their "Pro- 
test " that the " whole Church " had such convictions. 
Well, why did I not declare them before ? I might ask, 
why did not the " whole Church," and especially the 
ministry, declare them before ? The conduct of many 
in this community is a good and valid answer, if such 
conduct can excuse the ministers of God for remain- 
ing silent in the presence of crying sins. You know 
that the slave poicer^ that held even Congress subject 
to its will, and could lay its restraining hand upon 
the Supreme Court of the United States, and, in de- 
fiance of legislative enactments of Northern States, 
send an officer and bring back the fugitive slave, 
would have silenced their voices forever had they pre- 
sumed to preach against all the abuses of slavery. 
Even now that slavery i^^dead^ and I ask you to re- 
view all the moral aspects of the question and if you 
see the wrong to repent of it, some of you would 
willingly, perhaps gladly, see me hung by the neck un- 
til I am dead. Yet some of you say tlic sermon ought 



PREFACE. VU 

to have been preached long ago, it can do no good now. 
Although we could not formerly preach as I have 
done recently on the abuses of slavery, I did again 
and again declare myself against them as far as I 
deemed it safe or prudent to do so. I spoke against 
the wickedness of our laws on this subject five years 
ago, at Palmetto camp-meeting in this county ; again 
in Savannah, in 1861 and 1862 ; and again in the 
Baptist church in this town last fall. All these ser- 
mons are written and are now in my possession. 1 
was always careful to write down heforehand lohat I 
had to say on this subject Did I not in my " Fast- 
Day Sermon," preached from this pulpit over a year 
ago, a copy of which some of the hearers asked for 
publication, published at their own expense, and cir- 
culated among you, declare the innocence of the con- 
servative sentiment ? Look at the following passages : 
"Antislavery sentiments no doubt existed at the 
foundation of the Federal government, but they were 
comparatively hinocent and harmless; they engender- 
ed no discord, sought the subversion of no govern- 
ment, aimed at annulling no man's rights." Again, 
in the concluding call to repentance, I said : " Let 
every cruel tyrant who grinds doivn the flesh and Hood 
of his slave, refusing to allow him what is 'just and 
egual^ hut binding burdens grievous to be borne, admit 
that HIS CRIMES ESPECIALLY may have pro- 
voiced that indignation OMd wrath of God which has 



Vlll PREFACE. 

lecn poured out on our guilty land. ! if God 
has stmtten this imhajpjpy country it is for our sins, 
and he will not le appeased' witlvout repentance ^ 

Why did not a third of the congregation rush out 
of tlie chui'ch when I uttered these words and denounce 
me as an abolitionist ? Have not otliers in this com- 
munity had " cmivictions " that were unutterable ? 
Some of you complain bitterly that I said we fought 
professedly for liberty, and yet it Avas to perpetuate 
the chains of slavery. The idea, if not the very lan- 
guage, was put into my mouth by a prominent gen- 
tleman in town, a slaveholder, but not a member of 
the Church. A very large slaveholder in the country 
said to me, not a month ago, that slavery had occa- 
sioned the commission of more sin and had sent more 
souls to ruin than any other single thing in this coun- 
try. That man was not a member of the Church, yet 
there are pyrofessed Christians who openly assert that 
my sermons were instigated ly the devil! I have 
heard sentiments expressed by persons of all classes, 
all over this country, against the ruinous tendency of 
slavery, and some of those very persons ha\'e now 
turned against me because I have openly preached 
what they before felt in their own hearts. I have 
stated my points to ministei*s and others, and none of 
them have seen fit to controvert one of my positions. 
The fact is, all have their convictions on this sub- 
ject. Are they all hypocrites, because they have not 



PEEFACE. IX 

proclaimed their honest convictions from the house- 
tops? 

Brethren and friends, bear with me, but these 
sermons have acted as strong drink upon your minds ; 
thej have intoxicated you with excitement, almost 
delirium, and some of you have illustrated the aphor- 
ism in vino Veritas^ for you have in your frenzy ad- 
mitted that there was too much truth in the sermon. 
This is a strange concession in view of your conduct. 
There was too much, far too much truth to suit the 
times and t\iQ;people. 

A minister, deeply moved by the condition of his 
unfortunate countrymen, earnestly desirous of seeing 
them pm'sue a line of conduct that will contribute to 
their safety and happiness, consults one of his official 
brethren as to the propriety of preaching from a cer- 
tain text and turning attention to a certain channel 
of thought. It is deemed eminently fitting that he 
should do so. He goes upon his Imees before God in 
the closet and beseeches him to aid him in an efibrt 
to grasp his subject in all its bearings. He enters his 
study and consults his authorities, arranges and clas- 
sifies his 'matter. JSTew light beams upon his soul, and 
he begins his preparation. Study, analysis, classifica- 
tion, rouse the latent energies of the mind ; it is in a 
glow of fervid heat, thought awakening thought, 
emotion kindling emotion. IS'ow both intellect and 

spirit are in communion with the great invisible 
1* 



X PEEFACE. 

Spirit, and clothing thouglit in appropriate expression 
Le throws them upon his page, thoughts that breathe 
in words that hum. Specific ideas grow out of gen- 
eric roots, and all the specific and all the radical forms 
of thought center in a higher unity, and this he finds 
to be one of tlie grandest truths in the universe, 
evolved by the light of revelation thrown upon prov- 
idential teachings in one of the mightiest political, 
moral, and warlike movements to be met with in hu- 
man history. His preparation finished, he enters the 
puljjit with a soul burdened with the awful truths he 
has to deliver, oblivious for the time of the fact that 
he has left his hearers far behind him, struggling amid 
the maze of perplexity and doubt. He has gathered 
toirether and concentrated into one focus tlie ravs of 
truth which were already glimmering in many of 
their liearts, but all these rays combined are too 
much to glare suddenly upon them. The very efl:\il- 
gence dazzles but to blind. Hence misconception, 
exciting surprise, perhaps anger, leads to an oversight 
of the plainest distinctions made in the sermon, and 
a misstatement of what was spoken ensues. 

There have been several allusions in the- sermons 
and my printed card to my gradually coming to the 
light, which I will explain more fully. This was not 
merely a conviction of the evil tendencies of political 
secession, for of these I spoke and tried to point them 
out to many of you before the war. You know that 



PREFACE. XI 

I did not believe in tlie policy, but tbongbt it a rash- 
ness and madness unparalleled. But when secession 
did take place, you knoAV that I stood by and defend- 
ed my country while there was a fragment of hope on 
which to stand. I did not take this ground on the 
question of slavery, but, in spite of it, contended 
alone for the abstract right of independence. But 
when all was lost, our claim utterly denied, our 
whole country surrendered to the conqueror, I felt 
that it was the duty of every good citizen, and especial- 
ly of every Christian, to submit to the United States 
authorities, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the terms 
which they offered us. But my convictions of the 
evils of slavery were of long standing. They were 
greatly strengthened when our General Conference 
struck out of the Discipline everything relating to 
slavery. That act caused me to feel a sadness which 
was equaled only by that which I felt when the first 
gun announced to me the secession of Georgia. I felt 
an ominous foreboding of future ill. I was opposed to 
that act of expunging, and because I could not be 
heard here in Georgia to any good effect, I gave 
vent to my overcharged heart in writing to the West- 
ern Christian Advocate, at Cincinnati. My articles 
were noticed by some of the Southern Advocates, 
and " A Yoice from the Far South," my 7iom de 
jplume^ was represented to his Christian brethren in 
no enviable light. I came to the conclusion to leave 



Xll PREFACE. 

the CliurcL, whicli had now committed itself tiilly to 
the proslaverj cause, and go to some Conference in 
the Methodist Episcopal Cliurch ; I preferred the Bal- 
timore. I accordingly wrote to that great and good 
man, Dr. Abel Stevens, author of the " History of 
Methodism," with a view to effect the desired trans- 
fer. That good man advised me to await the open- 
ings of Providence, just as if he had a jprophetio 
foresight of these times. I should have gone to Bal- 
timore at the close of my second year in Savannah, 
if it had not been for the war. 

More than two years ago I came to the conclusion 
that we would never secure our independence unless 
we modified the whole system of slavery. From that 
time I became a warm advocate of gradual emancipa- 
tion, as ^v'ithout something of this kind we could 
never secure foreign recognition or aid. I argued 
this policy with many of you, and I never heard one 
of you object to it. Finally, I came to the full light 
of all my present convictions, when the issues of war 
disclosed this incontestable fact, that^ slavery is dead, 
and that " light " is this Providential teaching: God 
has destroyed slavery because of the moral evils in- 
herent in the system which Ave would not remove. 
This is a truth which the whole civilized world will 
accept. 

In conclusion, let me beseech you, my country- 
men, to beware of those who by their obstinacy en- 



PREFACE. XIU 

courage a spirit among jou which can only entail 
upon you further misfortune. Beware of those who 
tell you that slavery is not dead, that they will have 
it still. Brethren, slavery is dead ; it never more will 
live in the land of the free and the home of the hrave! 
Imitate the example of that illustrious chieftain, who, 
after fighting for his country as long as there was hope, 
now ashs for executive pardon. Beware of the spirit 
and example of those who would persuade you to 
live under a government of physical force, rather 
than a reconstructed civil government, based on a sur- 
render of your long-cherished principles. For your 
own good, for the good of your posterity, accept the 
situation as it is, and you may live to see a happy day 
and a happy country. 



SERMON FIRST. 

PREACHED JUNE 11, 1865. 

SUBJECT: ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 



Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal ; 
knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven. Col. iv. 1. 

The very mention of this subject awakeus witliin 
lis unpleasant memories of the past, reminds ns of all 
that is painful in our present situation, and suggests 
apprehensions of tlie future. Our minds run back to 
those peaceful days, when we fancied we were a free 
people ; when sheltered beneath the segis of that Con- 
stitution which our ancestors fought, suifered and 
toiled to secure for us; when, united in fraternal 
sympathy witli all who were secured by the same 
blood-bought rights, we were a great constellation of 
free communities, which, like those of the heavens, 
revolved around the Federal compact as a common 
center ; when we looked upon our social system as 
combining all the elements of beauty, strength and 
prosperity. But what is onr present condition ? Is 



16 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

there one among us who fails to grasp the import of 
events which may be justly ranked among the most 
important in the annals of Christendom ? or one whose 
pride forbids him to contemplate the stern reality that 
we, with all our pride of chivalry, are a conquered 
people ? Can we calmly consider the naked fact that 
now stares us in the face, that our destiny is no longer 
in our own keeping; that our future allotments, be 
they painful or otherwise, are such as should be 
granted, not such as we may choose ? As for om* 
future, how^ many hearts are now throbbing with in- 
tense anxiety ; how many entertain apprehensions the 
most gloomy, and view our situation as extremely dis- 
heartening, if not desperate ! My own heart is in 
profound sympathy with my suffering countrymen. 
They are my people ; their country is my country ; 
their God is my God ; where they live, I wish to live ; 
wliere they die, I wish to die ; where they are buried, 
there let me be buried also. When the}' suffer, I suf- 
fer with them ; when they weep, let me mingle my 
tears with theirs ; when they rejoice, let me also re- 
joice in their happiness. 

With such feelings, then, excuse me if I venture 
to-day to say some things which you have not been 
accustomed to hear from the pulpit. My heart is full 
of this subject ; it is bursting to give vent to long 
pent-up convictions. Facts which stand before us 
stern as the decrees of fate, impel me to it. 

This text presents one of those human relations 
which necessarily implies another. The relation of 
master and servant is, strictly speaking, a correlation, 
for each implies the existence of the other, and neither 



ABUSES OF SLAVEBY. 17 

could exist witliont the other. To each branch of the 
correlation there are affixed specific duties and obliga- 
tions. The master is commanded to ffive to his ser- 
vant that which is just mid equal, and is reminded of 
his responsibility to his own Master, who is in heaven. 
The servant is commanded to obey in all things his 
earthly master, and is also reminded of his responsibil- 
ity to the same great heavenly Master. He is there- 
fore required to obey, not with eye-service, as men- 
pleasers do, but in singleness of heart, fearing God ; 
performing service heartily as unto the Lord, and not 
unto man. ITow you see that these relations and the 
obligations annexed to them are mutual / they stand 
over the one against the other ; and they are so knit 
together, that the one must correspond in all respects 
to the other. The rectitude of the relation itself 
therefore depends, in the very nature of things, ui)on 
the due performance of the corresponding obligation 
I invite your attention to 

The Eelation and Obligation of a Master. 

This relation may be viewed now both retrospec- 
tively and prospectively ; both as to what it has been 
among us, and what it must hereafter be ; the first 
with special reference to the present condition of our 
country, the second as regards its future welfare. 

The relation as it has existed among us was deter- 
mined by the proprietary right, the right of property 
in man, and constituted that social state which is 
technicallij called slavery, or involuntary servitude. 
TTiis differs from the state of servitude in most coun- 



18 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

tries, where the servile relation depends not upon the 
proprietary right, but is supposed to be fixed by the 
voluntary choice of tlie servant himself. Tlie one is 
called a dave^ while the otlier is denominated a free- 
man. While the slave may suffer many legal disabil- 
ities which cannot be imposed upon the freeman, the 
latter may, and often does, suffer many discomforts 
which never fall to the lot of the slave : still the 
world, by common consent, calls one a slave and the 
other a freeman. 

From what source do we derive that relation 
which involves the proprietary right, the legal right 
of property in man ? There are many who question 
the existence of such right of propei-ty, but assert that 
slavery begins in the perpetration of a wrong, that it 
carries the wrong character along with the relation 
itself, that the wrong is coexistent and coextensive 
with that relation, and that no legal enactment can 
ever cause that to be right which was once in itself 
wrong. This idea is fundamental with that class who 
espouse the side of «5c>?2^/t??w5??i. On the other hand 
there are those who contend that the relation is right 
in itself., that it has its sanction from God, that the 
institution as it has existed among us, both in jprin- 
cijyle and p?'a dice, is jure divino, that it is a divine 
■ institution, and benehcial to society. This is the 
view adopted hj proslavery men. 

There is an irreconcilable difference between these 
two opinions. It is not to be wondered that each side, 
waxing fiercer and more relentless in advocating its 
principles, should foment those dissensions, influence 
those passions, and engender those deadly animosities 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 19 

whicli have culminated in a war of four years dura- 
tion, tlie most bloody, vindictive and destructive of 
modern times, and which has at hast terminated in 
the total destruction of the institution of slavery. 

But is there not a middle ground between these 
two extremes ? There certainly is, and that ground 
is this : the relation of master is estahlished in the 
Bible. Abraham was a master, -and held servants 
who were born in liis house and bought w^ith liis 
money. The Israelites were masters, and were ex- 
pressly allowed to buy servants of one another, and 
also of the stranger. Some of the early Christians 
were masters, and Paul returned a fugitive servant 
to his master. These, with many other instances, 
show, that the relation itself does not necessarily in- 
volve a moral evil, but rather that it was sanctitied 
and permitted of God. But to this relation there is 
annexed a corresponding duty, a moral alligation. 
The neglect or performance of that obligation deter- 
mines the moral character of slaver3\ The relation 
itself is right, because God does not condemn but 
expressly allows it. This obligation is designed to 
regulate the xuhole lyractice of slavery. When, there- 
fore, the practice is regulated by this obligation, the 
institution is right ; when otherwise, it is* wrong. It is 
\hQ jpractice^ therefore, and this only, which gives to the 
institution of slavery in this country a moral character. 

Now the slaveholder falls into this error : he sup- 
poses that the institution is right, both in principle 
and practice, because the relation is right. All our 
books written in defence of slavery fall into this mis- 
chievous error. 



20 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

On tlie other hand, the ^dtra abolitionist arraiirns 
the reh\tion itself, and tries it by the practice ; and 
because he finds things in the practice that are wrong, 
he condemns the relation itself as a moral evil per se, 
as a sin. But we take the ground that if the prac- 
tice is riojht, if the oblio-ation is faithfullv discharired, 
the institution is right ; if otlierwise, it is wrong. 
Judged by this severe test, I fear our institution as 
we liav^e held it in practice, is wrong. Is it too late 
to pass this judgment on it 7101c , seeing it has been 
effectually destroyed ? There are many grave reasons 
why we should even now pause and solemnly con- 
teinplate that institution, especially as there are many 
anions^ us whose minds are in doubt as to its real na- 
ture. 

Those who have been in the habit of vindicating 
the whole system of slavery, as held and practiced 
among us, on the mere ground of the scriptural recti- 
tude of the master's relation, are now in danger of 
fallino' into one of two danc^erous errors. The first is 
Infidelity. Already some are fallen into it. IS^ot 
many months ago, a gentleman of high standing and 
intelligence remarked to me^ " If we fail in this war, 
I shall then believe that slavery is wrong." I told 
liim that I had taken the same ground at the com- 
mencement of the war, and only waited its issues to 
be fuUij convinced of the moral character of the 
institution. " But," said he, " {/ our slavery is 
wrong, our Bihh is also wrongs I told him I would 
draw no sucli conclusion, but rather that slavery had 
been Avrong in practice, and that wo had misinter- 
preted and misapplied the teachings of the Bible. 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. V 21 

The other error is to suppose that Divine Provi- 
dence has had no participation in the war and its 
results. Others again complain of the Justice of God 
in this matter. " Why," thej ask, " if the institution 
is right, has God suffered it to be overthrown ? Why, 
after we have prayed so often and so earnestly, have 
we been doomed to so terrible a failure ? " Now, in 
view of this state of the public mind, I come forth to- 
day to vindicate the word of Truih^ and to justify 
the ways of God with men. 

I hold that if our practice had been conformed to 
the law of God, he would not have suffered the insti- 
tution to be overthrown. 

First, Was our institution right in its origin % 
Was it conformable io justice and equity f 

It originated in the African slave trade. Mark 
we have nothing to do with any other system of 
slavery that ever existed on the earth, except the one 
that has existed among us. The moral sense of the 
South long since condemned the African slave trade. 
All attempts on the part of individuals to revive it, 
either by smuggling or seeking a repeal of the prohi- 
bition, were met with the sternest opposition by the 
moral and religious convictions of our people. This 
system was wrong, then, in its origin. 

But it does not follow, as some contend, that the 
wrong thus begun, must, under all circumstances, 
continue. The sin of the wicked importer of a slave 
does not attach to the innocent inheritor of the off- 
spring of that slave. The master's relation being 
recognized in the word of God, and then sanctioned 



22 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

by civil law, it thencefortli becomes one of tlie rela- 
tions of civil society, and therefore as innocent in it- 
self as any other relation. The present generation of 
slaveholders are innocent as regards the origin and es- 
tablishment of the institution of slavery in this country. 
If they are guilty, it is because of the malpractice. 

Had the abolitionist from the beginning, and all 
the way along, forborne to attack the relation, and 
only struck at what was immoral in the practice ; 
had the slaveliolder held the civil right and all the 
enactments relating thereto in subordination to the 
higher authority' of the law of God, tliey had both 
met upon the common ground of a scriptural institu- 
tion. There had been no contention, no secession, no 
war, and the negro, gradually elevated by moral and 
mental improvement, would in time have been fitted 
for the enjoyment of freedom ; and thus the institu- 
tion, which originated in the darkest crimes that ever 
blackened the history of our fallen world, would have 
been overruled by Providence for the greatest good 
of both masters and slaves. As it is, an overruling 
Providence has had a gracious design in jjcrmitting 
the African to be brought to this continent, that he 
might be educated, Christianized, and fitted for a 
higher sphere of life. This providential design has 
been in part realized, and might have been more 
completely, had we performed our whole duty, and 
having been thus realized, God speaks to us in the 
thunder tones of a four years' war, saying, " The negro 
shall he free I " 

Will any one doubt that this is the decree of 
Heaven ? Then he must either come to the conclu- 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 23 

sion that there is no God, or that this world is 
governed independently of him, that he concerns 
himself not with the affairs of mortals. But as 
Christians we can neither deny the existence or 
providence of God, therefore we should accept the 
results of the civil war as his decree, and in meek 
submission own that he is just. 

Secondly, Let us now examine our practice, and see 
whether it is conformed to the requirements of the Bible. 

1. We have denied to the slave education and 
mental improvement. Do we find that practice 
sanctioned in the Bible? "We know that it is not. 
Some of us have felt this for many years ; we have 
spoken of it cautiously and prudently ; we have at 
different times and in divers ways sought to remedy 
the evil, and failed. The negro is a man ; he has 
mind, a soul, a moral faculty within him ; and if it is 
right that these should be developed and improved 
in the free man, why not also in the slave, since they 
are both alike accountable to the same God ? I am 
sure we cannot justify this practice from the Bible. 
Is it either just or equitable to use the means we 
have acquired from the labor of our slaves to educate 
our children and leave our servants in total ignorance, 
and keep laws to prohibit them from learning ? Our 
excuse for keeping them in ignorance has been the 
intermeddling of abolitionists, to prevent the negroes 
from reading their publications, which we have usual- 
ly styled " incendiary," which term we have been in 
the habit of applying to every form of argument, 
however mild, that was intended to show us what 



24 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

was immoral in our institution. But if another com- 
mit a wrong, it does not justify us in committing 
further wronf^. It furnishes no excuse for shuttinsj 
out tlie light from and Vuidhuj the chains harda* 
upon our servants, wlio were themselves innocent. 
The plea of necessity does not justify an act so cruel 
and unjust. In this respect our institution, we must 
admit, has been icrong. 

2. Our slaves sustain to one another the relations 
of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of 
brothers and sisters. In practice we have dissolved 
these relations, severed these natural ties, and cruelly 
sundered these bonds of kindred and afiection. Was 
this giving what was just and equal ? Can we find 
a trace of such an institution in the Bible ? If not, 
our institution has been wrong. I have read all the 
leading standard works written in the South in de- 
fence of slavery, and none of them has ever proved to 
my mind that in this particular our institution had 
an element of rectitude. This feature of the system, 
more than any other, held us up as a spectacle of re- 
proach to the Christian nations of the earth. Can we 
wonder that they united to crush us ? 

Many of us felt this ; we felt it deeply ; who has 
not felt it when he looked upon the heart-rending 
scenes of a slave mart ? The moral sense of many of 
our people was shocked, but it was silenced by a 
power wliicli they could not resist. 1 could have 
stood in the very shadow of St. Peter's and attacked 
Romanism, or in the streets of Constantinople and 
attacked Mohammedanism, with as much personal 
security as I could have stood here five years ago and 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 25 

talked as I do now. So much for our boasted free- 



dom of speech ! 

In 1832 Bishop Hedding was in Augusta, Georgia, 
and witnessed one of those revolting scenes so com- 
mon in our Southern cities, a slave auction, in whicli 
he saw a weeping mother separated forever fi'om her 
children, two little creatures, who were hanging to 
her side and sobbing as if their hearts would break. 
The good man dropped a tear of compassion, and at the 
same time made a remark about its " making his blood 
boil." The next day he was waited on by one of the 
preachers and notified that his remark had occasioned 
some excitement, and he was admonished to be pru- 
dent. Thus the deepest emotions of the human heart 
may be stirred, but dare not utter themselves in 
words. Such has been the character of the institu- 
tion among us. Do we find that feature of it in the 
Bible ? 

3. In practice we ignored the existence of one 
of the great precepts of Christianity, that concern- 
ing the marriage covenant. According to our laws 
and the practical application of them, the Christian 
precepts concerning marriage, adultery, and divorce, 
have no sort of reference to the negro. Is this that 
Scriptural institution which we have defended as ex- 
isting by divine right, as constituting the normal 
condition of society, as restoring the patriarchal 
system, as beautifying and adorning the social state, 
and contributing so much to the prosperity and happi- 
ness of mankind? If so, point us to a trace of our 
practice in the Bible. We have sought in a quiet 
way (because we conld not in any other) to have this 
2 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 



feature changed, but failed. Over a year ago, resolu- 
tions were offered before the Georgia Annual Con- 
ference, by one of its members, bearing upon this 
subject. The resolutions were laid on the table, and 
discussion forbidden as inexpedient and untimely. 
A mighty power had overawed the ministry, and 
shut them up against the utterance of their profoundest 
convictions of truth and right. 

4. We passed laws to operate more severely upon 
the slaves than upon ourselves. Was this just and 
equal ? If so, show it in the Bible ! 

5. In practice we have made a difference between 
the freeman and the slave in exacting the penalties of 
law. If a wrong was committed by a slave upon a 
white man, he Mas severely punished ; bnt when the 
white man committed a wrong upon a shive he 
nearly always escaped punishment. Many instances 
have come under my own personal knowledge, and 
doubtless many have under yours. AVe have laws 
which required masters to feed, clothe, and work 
properly ; to punish them for cruelty, for maiming or 
kiUino- a slave ; vet these laws have seldom been en- 
forced, and rarely has any penalty been .inflicted. 
Was this just and equal I 

6. We have been accustomed to judge the charac- 
ter of our slaves more severely than we judge our 
own. We have too often regarded and treated them 
as thieves, and punislied them for petty delinquencies, 
while in many instances our own evil practices have 
furnished them an example or an excuse for goiug 
astray. Formerly, when anything was stolen in any 
neighborhood the first suspicions fell on the negroes, 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 27 

and yet during tlie past four years more property has 
been stolen by white men than all the negroes put to- 
gether had ever before stolen in all their lives. Why 
should we have one standard to judge the negroes and 
another to judge ourselves by? Is this just or 
equal ? I have noticed the tendency in many minds 
to elevate the standard of morality for negroes and 
depress it for themselves. I have noticed some pro- 
fessors of religion, who were by no means remark- 
able for consistency of character, or j^mictual in the 
performance of religious duties, who were loud in 
their denunciation of trifling derelictions from the path 
of duty among negroes, and who boldly asserted that 
they had no confidence in negro religion, that all their 
pretensions to piety were hypocritical and deceitful. 
Such persons are more apt to pronounce their judgment 
upon negro piety than any other class. The best 
Christians I have ever known have had the most con- 
fidence in the piety of our colored Christians, and the 
sorriest professors I have ever known, those less scru- 
pulous than others as regards their relative obligations, 
have been the most censorious upon the moral and 
religious character of the negroes, and have done the 
least for their spiritual improvement. There have 
ever been a laro-e number of slaveholders in this 
class. I never, knew many of them to do much 
for the establishment of negro missions, but have fre- 
quently found them opposed to all such enterprises. 
Some of them have been bold enough to declare their 
belief that a negro has no soul, that he was made for 
no other purpose but to work for a white man, just as 
a horse or a mule. They settle large plantations in 



28 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

the lower part of the state, and in the great river 
valleys, and stock them with negroes just as they 
did with nmles and cattle. They give themselves no 
more concern about the moral and intellectual im- 
provement of their slaves than about educating a horse 
and teaching him the principles of religion. They enter 
into a nice calculation of how many mules and negroes 
it will take on a given number of acres to produce a 
given number of bales of cotton ; how many dollars 
that cotton will sell for, and what amount must be 
deducted from the sum for the loss of a given number 
of slaves, v:ho must fall victims to the malignant fevers 
of the localitg ! Thus they count their gains at the 
expense of human suffering and human life I The 
life of a negro belonging to such a man is one long, 
dark night of toil, unillumined by a single ray of 
hope! I solemnly declare that I have seen many 
such masters, and many such slaves. 

Is it not astonishing that we have suffered such 
outrages against humanity to exist so long among us ? 
Is it any wonder that the curse of God has blasted an 
institution which has been so greatly abused, and at 
one dread stroke destroyed, it forever ? Look at that 
curse which Heaven has sent upon us for abusing and 
perverting an institution which a wise and Avhole- 
some leirislation midit have brono'ht in harmonv with 
-the law of God, but which an unjust and inequitable 
leirislation has abused until it retains nut an element 
of rectitude according to the word of God. Look at 
that curse, I say ; behold it in ruined commerce and 
blighted farms, in the smoulderhig ruins of cities and 
the desolation of once smiling and fertile plains, in the 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 29 

prostration of every industrial energy and the collapse 
of every material interest, in the gaunt famine that 
stalks through the land, and the poverty and ruin that 
have come upon us. If Babylon and Nineveh and 
Carthage, if Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem, were 
cursed of God, so surely has our own unfortunate 
country been visited by the stroke of his vengeance, 
and all because we would not give that which was 
just and equal unto our servants. .. :-; 

How strangely inconsistent have we been ! "We 
fought professedly for liberty ; and yet it was to per- 
petuate the chains of slavery. We professed the 
principles of our revolutionary fathers, and vainly 
appealed to them as a precedent for our own inde- 
pendence ; yet their very first maxim condemned our 
practice. We professed to hate monarchy and detest 
tyranny ; yet we boasted a king to whose potent 
sway all kings and potentates of the earth should 
bow ! Is it any wonder that, attempting to reverse 
principles so grand, ours should be reversed upon our 
own heads? That if we, \hQfree^ invoked the genius 
of liberty io forge chains wherewith to hind others^ that 
very genius should in tm-n release the captive only to 
bind his manacles upon our own limbs ? 

How proud and self-sufficient have we been ! We 
boasted our might, our proiuess, our talent. We 
could circumvent in diplomacy, defeat regardless of 
numerical strength, and affected to despise our foes ! 
Is it any wonder that we have been reduced to the 
necessity of bowing the knee to the power that has 
subdued ns, and begging for a small favor as a mere 
gratuity ? The naked alternative is now presented to 



30 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

every man to stoop or go into poverty or exile. He 
that is too stiff to bow now has nothing before him 
but the life of a pauper. Is it any wonder that in 
the mighty conflict of antagonistic principles, pride, 
haughtiness and self-sufficiency should be cast down 
into the very dust, and that from this humble attitude 
we should be compelled to look up to the rock from 
whence we were hewn, even that great rock, the 
Federal Union, and leg to be lifted up again; and 
to that greater Eock on high, and pray to have 
our consciences purged from the stains of injustice and 
fraud and violence and oppression ? Is it any wonder 
that we who have grown rich from the toil of those 
whom we have ground down by a life of hardship, 
granting but a poor return of coarse fare and scanty 
raiment, should in return be made so poor that no7ie 
can he found to do vs reverence f 

How ignorant, infatuated and stupid have we 
been ! We shut out the light of knowledge from the 
mind of our servant and placed a drawn sword at the 
door of his mind, forbidding any wholesome truth to 
enter there. We would not ourselves come to the 
light that our deeds might be made manifest. We 
shut our ears against the remonstrances of the civil- 
ized world, and to all their appeals to conscience, to 
charity, to justice, to equity, bade them in eftect go 
about their own business. Is it any wonder that in our 
blindness we stumbled on, till now our chosen leaders 
are either seeking their safety in flight, or are bound 
in chains, while no voice of compassion, no word of 
sympathy, comes to us from the civilized world ? 

How self-righteous have we been ! We in eflect 



ABUSES OF SLAVEKY. 31 

said to others, " Stand ye tliere ! We are liolier than 
ye ! " We fasted and prayed, yet justified ourselves 
belbre God. We reproached our enemies for fighting 
against the God of heaven, and we defended our 
institution as one existing by Divine right. We made 
long prayers, preached war sermons, counted omens 
by the score which bespoke our ultimate success, and 
thus we hastened blindly to our ruin. Instead of re- 
penting before higb heaven that we had done a great 
wrong to our fellow man ; instead of rectifying that 
wrong, we refused to amend our laws and do justice 
and equity. Is it any wonder that we should be 
stripped of our charge, and that God should say to us 
now, "' Give account of thy stewardship, for thou may- 
est be no longer steward ? " 

But why have we shut out the light from our eyes 
and walked so long in darkness ? Why have we so 
long refused to do justice and equity, and been per- 
mitted to hear no voice of warning in our midst 
against a monstrous iniquity which has shocked the 
moral sense of the world ? I am aware that these are 
words which once came on the wings of the wind 
from other climes ; but they waked no echo here. 
"We made light of them, and pointed in triumph to 
the Bible as justifying slavery, and to the institution 
as of Divine right in spite of its abuses. But the ques- 
tion returns, why? It was because of a power so 
strong, so great, so determined in its purpose, that it 
required two millions of armed men to crush it. That 
power consisted of about four himdred thousand j[)eT- 
sons. They w^ere scattered over a vast territory, yet 
were as compact as an army of veterans. They 



32 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

were not armed witli bristling bayonets, but with all 
the power that wealth, talent, social iiilluence and 
political organization could combine. They stood in 
their principles and measures from Maryland and 
Missouri to the Rio Grande, shoulder to slioulder, knit 
together as with the sinews of leviathan. They dif- 
fered essentially in many particulars, but they had 
the unity of a single person in the one grand aim that 
distinguished them from all other persons, that was 
to hold about four millions of human beings in ^er- 
petiial slavery. This was the power, the four hun- 
dred thousand slaveholders. This was the slave pow- 
er, the mightiest power for near a century that existed 
on this continent. Let us look at the miglity sway 
which it held by the civil power and its political in- 
fluence during all this time. 

1. This w^as the power that crushed out the anti- 
slavery sentiment of the South. For a long time after 
the revolutionary war, this sentiment was an active 
element in society. I can remember well in my boy- 
hood to have heard it uttered frequently here in 
Georgia. But this mighty power, through the press 
and the schools, and the rival political parties, and 
penal legislation, and the terrors of persecution, at last 
issued its mandates ; bade men hold their tongues, 
and utter no blasphemy against the immaculate purity 
of that august power. Two missionaries in the Che- 
rokee nation, more than thirty years ago, were incar- 
cerated in the Georgia penitentiary for disobeying 
this imperious decree. This event is one of the recol- 
lections of my childhood. 



AEUSES OF SLAVERY. 33 

2. This power crushed out the antislavery senti- 
ment of the Church. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church was antislavery 
in sentiment up to the time the Church was divided. 
For many years after the separation the rules on the 
subject of slavery were retained in the discipline of 
the southern Church. They were not expunged until 
- 1858, only seven years ago. The first rule, the one 
prohibiting the buying or selling of men, women, and 
children, with an intention to enslave them, was in- 
serted among the General Rules at the General Con- 
ference of 1784, at which the Methodist Episcopal 
Church was organized. This rule was explained by 
Bishops Coke and Asbury to apply to the purchase or 
sale of any slave here in America, or for any purchase 
but to set the slave at liberty. The same General 
Conference adopted rules prohibiting all slavcholdiug 
in the Church, except where the laws of the state pro- 
hibited the emancipation of slaves. The language of 
the rules was objected to in Yirginia and in the states 
further south, as calculated to embarrass the opera- 
tions of the ministry in preaching the Gospel to the 
blacks. They were afterward abandoned and others 
adopted in their place, still censuring the practice of 
slaveholding, but allowing the retention of the slave- 
holder in the church. This was a mere concession to 
the slave power, not a surrender of the principle. 
Several modifications were made subsequentK', all 
concessions to the slave power, but never for one mo- 
ment was the principle abandoned. The Church al- 
ways asserted in the most direct and positive terms 
the antislavery doctrine. The abolition party in the 
2* 



34 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

Cliurch, at the General Conferences of 1836 andlSiO, 
made desperate efforts to rend the Cliurcli, but the 
conservative antislavery element triumphed, and pre- 
served its miitj till 184:4:. Then came the crash, 
the rent, the fatal schism which was hailed in South 
Carolina as ''Hhe first dissolution of the {jyolitical) 
uniony 

Kow mark, the Church was not divided by the 
antislavery sentiment, for it had always been anti- 
slavery ; it w^as not divided by aholitionis?n, for the 
abolitionists had been defeated, and the leading agi- 
tators had withdrawn from the Church ; it was divided 
])j the slave jpoicer. It happened in this way : The 
Church had always forbidden, not by any wa-itten rule, 
but by a tacit understanding kno\vn to all the minis- 
try and especially the bishops— jf/^d ejAscojpacy to have 
any connection with slavery. The General Confer- 
ence had always refused to elect a slaveholding bishop, 
and this was know^n throughout the Church as the 
standing and immovable sentiment. But one of the 
bishops, wdiom w^e have always loved, and still love, 
with the knowledge of this fact T^ept distinctly hefore 
his mind, voluntarily connected himself with slavery. 
This was the cause of the separation, and it caused it 
because the slave power demanded it, and could be 
appeased in no other w^ay. From that moment the 
northern branch receded toward abolitionism, and 
the southern toward proslaveryism, until the one 
adopted a rule to exclude all slaveholders from the 
church, and the other expunged from the discipline 
every rule relating to slavery. Thus was the anti- 
slavery sentiment crushed out of the Church. 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 35 

3. This power brought the moral obligation, im- 
posed by the law of God, into subordination to the 
legal right, established by the civil law. Hence no 
marriage rite, no education, no emancipation from 
bondage, could be allowed to the negro ; hence slave 
marts and slave auctions, with all the horrors attend- 
ant on the separation of families and kindred ; hence 
all discussion by the press, by the pulpit, in legislative 
hall or elsewhere, in which the right of the master to 
oppress his slave might be the topic, was disallowed, 
and penal statutes were made forbidding it. 

Having crushed out the antislavery sentiment 
from among the people and from the Church, this 
power subsidized everything within its reach to up- 
hold it. The press, the politicians, the teachers, the 
ministers of religion, were all but so many tools in its 
hnnd. The Church and ministry were secularized, and 
all jDreferment in Church or state was confined to 
those who in one way or another preached the gospel 
oi proslavery ! 

4. This power has ruled with absolute and des- 
potic sway. It held the bodies of four millions of 
slaves in bondage, and at the same time n>aintained 
supremacy over the Tiiinds and consciences and speech 
of ei<2:ht millions of whites. I used often to wonder 
why none of our bishops, none of our distinguished 
divines, ever preached on the moral obligations of 
masters, while they often explained and enforced 
those of servants. The reason is plain : they were 
overawedhj the slave power. It had uttered its man- 
dates and prescribed the metes and bounds of discus- 
sion. It had said, in effect, " Thus far, but no farther 



36 ABUSES OF SLAVEKY. 

you may go in criticising tlie conduct of masters. 
You may speak of the relation ; call it a divine rights 
establish it in sermon, essay, and book, to be of God's 
own appointment, and well pleasing in his sight. You 
may preach to the slave and tell him his Avhole duty 
to his master, that he is to obey in all things, not 
with eye-service, as menpleasers, but doing the 
master's will Avith a good heart, for this is required of 
him by his Master who is in heaven. But as to the 
practice of the master, as to his moral oldigation, 
touch it lightly. You may say something about 
' things that are just and equal,' but they must be un- 
derstood to mean in some places a half pound of meat 
per day, a peck of corn per week, a hat, blanket, 
pair of shoes, and three suits of clothing for a year ; 
in other localities, as in lower Carolina and Georgia, 
you may mention all these except the meat. This 
must be about the range of your suggestions to masters ; 
go beyond it, and you must be reminded that you are 
uttering sentiments disloyal to the slave power. As 
for education and marriage, separation of families and 
kindred, auction sales and negro marts, negro raisers 
and negro traders, cruel treatment and hard fare, they 
are not to be mentioned. These are matters pertain- 
ing to the civil law, and, being under that, you must 
obey the powers that be, for thev are ordained of 
God." 

Could the most absolute despotism on earth go 
l)eyond this, in chaining down the human mind and 
conscience and speech ? You may go to London, and 
in Westminster or Hyde Park criticize the behavior 
of the British sovereign ; you may go to St. Peters- 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY, 



37 



burgli and speak about the Czar himself, but you 
could not stand on a foot of southern soil and de- 
nounce our practice of slavery as immoral, without 
personal danger. Yet we say that we have heen fight- 
ing for Uherty^ that w^e have free speech and a free 
press ! We have had no such thing. We have been 
enslaved ourselves ! Our minds, our speech, our con- 
sciences, our press, our pulpit, all were in abject 
dependence upon the slave power. I could to-day, 
perhaps, with the military power of the Federal gov- 
ernment established over me, and twenty thousand 
bayonets in the state to enforce its authority, openly 
pronounce that government a tyranny without in- 
curring the danger of personal violence ; but I could 
not, when I stood here, five years ago, have denounced 
our practice of slavery as tyrannical. I should have 
been forced to leave the state, if an infuriated mob 
had permitted me to escape. 

Have we not been enslaved^ my brethren and 
countrymen ? But we are now free ! The same 
blow which struck ofi* the manacles from the black 
man has liberated the mind and conscience of the 
white man. 

See to what extent the domination of four hun- 
dred thousand persons may reach. The slave power 
had asserted its authority over the bodies of four 
millions of blacks, over the minds and speech and 
consciences of eight millions of whites, and attempted 
the bold task of extending its imperial domination 
over thirty millions of people ! It was a controlling 
power in Congress for eighty years. It haughtily de- 
clared that it wielded a power that could make half 



38 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

the tlirones in Europe espouse its cause. It first de- 
manded and then repealed the 3kIissouri Compromise. 
It attempted to cross the line and plant slavery upon 
the soil of Kansas. It had demanded as a constitu- 
tional right to go upon any of the public territory of 
the nation. It had sent the United States Marshal 
into the heart of Xew England to arrest and bring 
back the fugitive. It demanded, in the Charleston 
Convention, that the same silence which it had al- 
ready imposed upon the South should now be im- 
posed upon the North ; and failing in this, forgetting 
that the Federal Constitution was its only security 
against the concentrated vengeance of Christendom, 
it madly rushed into that secession policy and that 
rash scheme of independence and empire which 
wrought its entire overthrow. Surely it has illus- 
trated the truth of the proverb : being often reproved 
and hardening its neck, it is suddenly destroyed and 
that without remedy ! God called, but it refused, 
he stretched forth his hand, but it regarded him not ; 
but set at naught all his counsel and would none of 
his reproof. Xow he laughs at its calamity, and 
mocks when its fear cometh. 

5. This power has impoverished our soil. "What 
made these old red hills, these sterile old fields? 
Slavery! Unmindful of the welfare of generations 
unborn, instead of improving the lands, and increas- 
ing their productive capacity, the slave power 
wrench(;d from the soil the last dollar it could yield, 
to Jjuy another ncgro^ to open another Jield^ to maho 
more cotton^ to huy still another negro! Xow these 
old fields remain the only monument of its former 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 39 

greatness, the sad memorial of its greed for gold ! 
Will we wonder if tlie lauds which we have so great- 
ly abused should now be wrested from us, to pay the 
very cost of subduing that power wherein we trusted ? 
Oi that power we had made an idol. We set it 
uj), not only above the thrones of the kings and 
princes of this world, but above tlie very throne of 
God, to make laws wherewith to bind the consciences 
of men. 

6. This is the power that made the war. Slavery 
made secession and secession made the war. It sent 
your husbands, brothers and sons to the battle, and 
their bones lie bleaching upon a thousand gory fields, 
fj'om Gettysburgh to the plains of Arizona ! But 
that power is fallen. It fell before the mightiest 
array of military power that ever shook the earth. 
All nations sent their quotas of troops, and all the 
North and part of the South marshalled their mighty 
hosts. The right arm of its strength was cut off by 
the emancipation proclamation, and the negro him- 
self grasped the musket and fought for freedom. But 
so great was this power that it fell at last, more by 
its own succession of blunders than by the might of 
its adversary. The w^ar, as a sagacious statesmanship 
might have foreseen, has proved its ruin ; and by its 
death you are bereaved, as a desolate widow stripped 
of her dowry, and your children as orphans crying 
for a piece of bread ! Is it not so f 

This power is dead^ and from the grave which its 
own suicidal hand hath dug it never more can rise. 
It fell before the majesty of that awful truth, which 
it had the sophistry to pronounce a lie : all men are 



40 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

created equal; it fell before the grandest power be- 
neath the sun, tlie majestic power of the Federal 
Union. 

A new power is inaugurated in the South, the 
power of Freedom. Kever again will you hear the 
clank of that chain which binds the human fomi in 
slavery. I^ever more will you see a husband ruth- 
lessly torn fi'om the wife he loves, nor the mother 
from her weeping children, l^ever more will you 
read the statute that forbids your fellow man to study 
letters and gain knowledge. Kever more will you 
behold the human form upon the auctioneer's stand 
offered to the highest bidder as if it were a piece of 
merchandise, while the lynx-eyed speculator looks 
on and bids, as he mentally calculates his profits 
in a distant mart. Kever more will you see a 
slave-mart, with locks and bars and cells, frowning, 
like a very prison, upon the street where freemen 
tread ! 

A new era has dawned upon the South, an era of 
light and knowledge, dispelling the shades of a long 
night of darkness. New light flows in upon our 
minds ; new ideas are afloat in our midst ; a new 
i»e,gijnie takes the place of the old; and society, up- 
turned in its foundations by war, revolution, social 
and moral disorder, will settle down at last upon a 
new basis. Servitude will henceforth be voluntary, 
and the slaveholder, no longer a master in the former 
sense, will make his contract and pay the hireling 
his wages. This will be ''just and equal;" and 
while the relation continues without the j^rojprietary 
right, the same moral obligations will rest upon both 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 41 

masters and servants. Let us, my brethren and coun- 
trymen, discliarge that obligation, and, in course of 
time, the change may be beneficial alike to master 
and servant. Let us learn something from past ex- 
perience, and the happy effects of this change will 
shortly become visible. The waste j)laces will be re- 
paired, ruined cities rebuilt, civil government, com- 
merce, agriculture and trade re-established, and we 
shall start out rejuvenated upon a new path of enter- 
prise and prosperity. Then let us aim for a brighter 
and nobler destiny. Let us divest ourselves of all 
the old prejudices and animosities. Let us now shake 
hands with our late foes beneath the ample folds of 
that victorious flag which symbolizes the grandest 
power under the canopy of heaven. Let us not 
stand back because they have slain our kindred, lest 
they draw back because we have slain theirs. Your 
only safety is in fraternal union. You will be short- 
ly called upon to meet in a public assembly to peti- 
tion the authorities to re-establish the civil govern- 
ment of the state. Let me advise you all to meet 
promptly, and publicly pledge your future loyalty 
and devotion to the Union. If any man finds himself 
excluded from the provisions of amnesty, and affects 
stubbornness now, it will only show that he is bent 
ujDon his own ruin. The naked alternative is pre- 
sented of begging the favor of being included in those 
provisions, or choosing the path to poverty, perhaps 
to exile. The favor is oflered, j^rovided you v^k it. 
It is no time to manifest pride, it will do you no 
good. You are fallen, and lie helpless as a wilted 
leaf at the feet of the only man on earth that can do 



4:2 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 

you any good. There is but one man that can help 
you, that man is President Johnson. He extends his 
hand ; take hold of it speedily, the sooner the better. 
That blow is now impending, (the Tax Act) which, 
if not suspended, will sweep from your path every 
hope of the future. Beware lest, by taking counsel 
of your pride, }ou provoke that last fatal stroke, and 
like the power you evoked to carry out your wild 
dream of independence, you fall to rise no more. As 
for pride, cast it down ; there remains no alterna- 
j;ive but humiliation or starvation, and he who 
counsels otherwise is the greatest enemy of your 
haj^piness. 

I have thus preached to you, my countrymen and 
brethren, because I would reconcile you to events 
that are inevitable ; because I would awaken within 
you a desire to look more seriously into those prin- 
ciples wherein you have been educated, and which, 
as you see, have produced so much mischief to 
yourselves and your country ; and because I would 
now have you fairly start in the path that will 
ensure your exemption from still greater misfor- 
tunes. 

As I have spoken freely this morning to you who 
lately sustained the relation of masters, I will speak 
this afternoon to those who sustained to you the re- 
lation of slaves. I shall tell them what they already 
know, that they are free^ as a necessary result of 
the war ; they are free^ but that they must remain 
in their present state until by a formal legislative 
act they shall be pronounced legally free. I shall 
endeavor to show them how they must act in future, 



ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 43 

SO that their freedom may be to them a blessing and 
not a curse. 

I will also give you notice now, that on next Sab- 
bath I will continue this subject, in order to show 
how the power that has so long enthralled our minds 
and consciences has affected the Church of God. 



SERMON SECOND. 



PREACHED JUNE 18, 1865. 



SUBJECT: THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 
ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 



SERMON SECOND. 

PEEACHED JUISTE 18, 1865. 

SUBJECT: THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND ITS 
EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 



God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. 
Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though 
the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters 
thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the 
swelling thereof. Solah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall 
make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the 
Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God 
shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms 
were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of 
hosts is with us ; the . God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, 
behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the 
earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he break- 
eth the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder: he burnetii the chariot 
in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God ; I will be exalted among 
the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is 
■with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. — Psalm xlvi. 

The bold figures in tins psalm were j)robably sug- 
gested to the mind of its author by the wars and pop- 
ular commotions of tlie times of Eli, Samuel, Saul, 
and David. These commotions are compared to the 



48 THE SLAVERY COXFLICT AND 

shock of ail earthquake, the swelling of mighty 
waters, the mountains trembling to their bases and 
leaping into the sea, and the sea itself lashing its 
storm-beaten waves against the mountain sides. The 
metaphors are strong and grand, but not more so than 
become the awfnl sublimity of the subject. The 
reality of such terrific scenes could scarcely excite 
emotions more dreadful than the tramp of invading 
armies, the clangor of deadly weapons, the shouts of 
embattled hosts rushing to the conflict, and the 
shrieks and groans of war's wretched victims. 

From such scenes the Psalmist turns his eye to a 
spectacle of such serene beauty and loveliness, that 
we cannot wonder at his ascribing so great a change 
to God, who was his refuge and strength. 

From the lofty elevation of Mount Zion he could 
look out and survey 'Hhe mountains round about 
Jerusalem," and the '^ city of the great king," seated, 
like a queen, upon an opposing eminence, with two 
beautiful valleys embracing it in their arms. Down 
each of these smiling vales a gentle brook descended, 
till, near the base of " Zion's hill," they united, and 
rolled their confluent waters along the enchanting 
plain. Was ever landscape so lovely! Those gentle 
brooks united symbolized that spiritual river whose 
gentle flow waters " the city of our God." How 
striking the contrast between the two pictures ! One 
is the roaring sea, the moving earth, the trembling 
mountains, representing the wars, agitations, and 
strifes of the world ; the other a beautiful river, fed 
by tributary streams, descending through a charming 
vale, the picture of serene repose. This picture is 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH. 49 

intended to represent the calm quiet, tlie holy con- 
fidence and joy of tlie Church of God after and amid 
scenes of danger and battle and political revolution. 

What produced so great a change? The provi- 
dence of God. The Psalmist invites us to contemplate 
this great truth : " Come, behold the works of the 
Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 
He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; 
he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; 
he burneth the chariot in the lire. Be still, and know 
that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, 
I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is 
with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." 

In all wars and other commotions the hand of 
God, though not visible, is the all-directing, all-con- 
trolling power. He is in every war, in every cam- 
paign, in every battle, in every great political and 
social change, and directs every movement for the 
accomplishment of his own grand purposes. If war 
i-esults in the subjugation of a people, or the annihil- 
ation of an institution of society, we must accept 
such result as Heaven's decree, and although we can- 
not trace the connection between the divine agency 
and the mere instruments employed by him, nor ap- 
prove all the principles and measures of those instru- 
ments, yet in the end some good will be apparent, 
and God's name will be exalted ; so his people may 
feel assured in all their sufi*erings and sorrows that 
he is their Refuge, and Strength. It is this calm 
confidence in God, this immovable faith in his provi- 
dence, that brings about that consciousness of security 
and repose so happily expressed by the Psalmist : 
2 



60 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

"There is a river, the streams whereof shall make 
glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles 
of the Most High. God is in the midst ot' her; she 
shall not be moved ; God shall help her and that right 
early." This joyful and happy state of Zion succeeds 
to those scenes of contention and strife alluded to in 
the first part of the psalm, and which are represented, 
in the latter part, as coming to an end by means of 
victory achieved under the direction and control of 
divine providence. 

The Church of God in this country has been for 
many years in the midst of commotions and agitations 
growing out of the nature and practice of a social 
institution, and I come forth to-day to analyze the 
jprincijpUs involved in the dispute, to exhibit them 
in some of the chief joints of their antagonism^ and 
to show the effect of the conflict xijpon the Church of 
God, 

Before proceeding further, let me state that many 
years ago I provided myself with books on both sides 
of the slavery question. These works, including 
journals of General Conferences, comprise about 4,000 
pages of printed matter. I have read them, studied 
them, analyzed their arguments pro and con^ and I 
think am prepared to state, define, expound, and 
elucidate them. 

I am not surprised that persons who have never 
studied much, nor marked the diflerence between one 
class of principles and another, should misapprehend 
some points in my first sermon, and, in a moment of 
excitement, misstate them to others. It will be seen, 
however, from what I have said, that my views are 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 51 

not the result of sudden feeling or impnlse, but of 
study aud reflection. Now I wish you to understand 
at the outset, that, for every fact I state, I can point 
yon to the page and paragrapli where it may be 
seen. 

First, let ns analyze and define Principles. 
They consist of three classes denominated respect- 
ively. Abolitionism, PEOSLAVERYisii, and Anti- 

SLAVEEYISM or CONSERVATISM. 

1. Abolitionists are divided into two classes, iiltra 
and moderate 'j but they have a common principle, 
and differ only as to their measures. Their principle 
is this : ' It is sin, a high imme/rality ^ for any man^ 
under any circumstances^ to sustain the Telation of 
master to a slave; that no human being has^ under 
any circumstances, a right to hold property in another 
hxiinan being!''' The principle, expressed in the fewest 
words, is, ''^All slaveholding is sm.^^ This being their 
principle, they are for the immediate abolition of 
slavery, regardless of consequences ; hence the name 
" abolitionist," one who subverts, destroys, or a?i?iuls. 
With them the relation of a master to a slave is sin, 
sin in itself j and is it not strange that a people who 
ought to be familiar with the principles involved in a 
controversy of sncli long standing, involving, as it 
does, the moral character of an institution which they 
have defended as innocent and right, should charac- 
terize as an abolition sermon, one in which the mas- 
ter's relation was defended from tlie word of God ? 

While abolitionists all agree in principle, they 
disagree as to their measures. In the Church they go 



52 ' THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

for the iminecllate exclusion of all slaveholders, say- 
ing, they " can neither countenance nor fellowship the 
slaveholder." As a political party I described them 
in a "Fast-Day Sermon" which I preached from 
this pulpit over a year ago. That sermon Avas printed 
and circulated among you. I here reaffirm every 
sentiment concerning abolitionism, and would reaffirm 
every sentiment of patriotism expressed in it, if I 
could do so without arraying myself against the pow- 
ers that be, and committing a crime. The principles 
of ultra abolitionism culminated in their blackest 
infamy in the " Jolm Brown raid." I abhor both the 
principles and the measures. 

2. The Proslavery principle is, that slavery is a 
righteous institution, and, as such, it ought to be per- 
petuated ; hence tlie name 2^'>'osluv€ry, for slavery, 
that is, for its jy^^U^^^tual continuance as it is. Pro- 
slavery men held that the institution as it has existed 
among us is of divine appointment^ and beneficial to 
society. Therefore they regard all the laws to keep 
the slave in ignorance, to keep him in perj^etual bond- 
age, without the possibility of emancipation, and all 
such as are designed to hold him as a mere chattel, as 
inght i\ud p?'o_pe)\ 

These are the chief antagonistic elements which 
w^ere at work in American society for many years, 
and which at last produced a severance of ecclesiasti- 
tical and political bonds, and led to the crash of arms 
and to the ruin of our section. 

3. Antislaveryism is more difficult to define, be- 
cause it embraces a great many classes who come be- 
tween the two extremes. In general, an antislayery 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUKCIT. 



53 



man is one wlio declares against shiA'ery, as the name 
imports. lie may declare himself against slavery 
becanse he may, like the abolitionist, believe it to be 
a sin in itself ^ but he proposes no measures that are 
harsh, unjust, or inexpedient for its extirpation. This 
makes a wide difference between him and the aboli- 
tionist. To this class the earliest Methodist preachers 
in America, with Bisliops Coke and Asbnry, belonged. 
Those great and good men made the Methodist Epis- 
copal Clmrcli antislavery at the very heginning. 

Orher antislavery men approach nearer to the 
proslavery side. They hold that slavery is not of 
necessity a moral evil in itself; but justify the rela- 
tion of master from the word of God, just as I have 
done, and only declare against what is immoral in 
the practice. 

]^ow this class included the main body of the 
Methodist ministry in the South at the time of 
separation. Dr. Capers wrote an article which was 
published in the religious papers about that time, 
refuting a charge made in some of the northern 
papers, that the southern Church was proslavery. 
The charge was made repeatedly for a year or two 
after the division, and as often refuted., and the title 
disclaimed. Well then, if the Church was not pro- 
slavery., what was it ? It was not an abolition 
Church; then it must have been antislavery^ and 
so it cZ<?i?^i^r^6? itself through three successive General 
Conferences, and only expunged that declaration, 
with strong opposition, at the fourth. The rules on 
the subject of slavery remained in the book of Dis- 
cipline until 1858. 



64: THE SLAVERY COXFLICT AIsD 

That it may appear conclusively to every mind 
that I have not misstated the position of the vjhole 
Church at the time of separation, I %vill quote the 
following admission of the southern delegates con- 
tained in the " Minority Protest : " " The ichole 
Churchy by common consent, united in proper etfort 
for the mitigation and linal removal of the evil of 
slavery." 

Here the evil of slavery is distinctly admitted by 
the southern portion of the Church, and it is likewise 
admitted that the lon2:-standin2: declaration ai»;ainst it 
had reference to the ultimate extirpation of that evil, 
whatever it was, whether the evil j^^^ ^^ or the cir- 
cumstances which pertained to the ])ractice, that 
were evil. Thus the great conservative element of 
the Church was antislaveryism. 



Secondly, lot us notice the Conflict between these 
Elements. 

Tliere had been little agitation of the subject of 
slavery, either in Church or state, prior to the rise 
of ultra-abolitionism. Some contention had existed 
in the Church, which led to a verbal alteration of the 
General Rule and several modifications of the Sec- 
tion on Slavery, until 182^:, since which time there 
had been no alteration of the Discipline till some years 
after the separation. The Church contented itself by 
putting upon the record its disapprobation of slavery, 
and providing for its extirpation from among its 
official members, wherever the laws of the state 
would admit of emancipation and allow the liberated 
slave to enjoy freedom. " We declare that we are 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH, 55 

as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery; 
therefore no slaveholder shall be eligible to any offi- 
cial station in onr Church hereafter, when the laws 
of the state in which he lives will admit of emancipa- 
tion and permit the liberated slave to enjoy freedom." 
The second paragraph of the same section provides, 
tliat, "when any travelling preacher becomes an 
owner of a slave or slaves, by any means, he shall 
forfeit his ministerial character in our Church unless 
he execute, if it be practicable, a legal emancipation 
of such slaves, conformably to the laws of the state 
in which he lives." 

The law does not define what sort of "evil" is 
meant, but. leaves every one to the exercise of his own 
judgment. The ultra-abolitionist may, if he likes, 
call it a moral evil jper se / a sin ; the proslavery man 
may say, it is only in some of its aspects a social and 
political evil, not a moral evil at all, but right in 
itself^ and therefore a proper institution and bene- 
ficial to society; the moderate antislavery or con- 
servative man may say, it is not necessarily a moral 
evil, but such only in some of its circumstances, and 
in so far as it is in any of its circumstances it is so 
far both a political and social evil. 

Resting securely upon this ground, the Church 
had peace, harmony, and prosperity, for many years. 
The conservative element held the balance of power 
between the two extremes of abolitionism and pro- 
slaveryism, and, for a period of sixty years, kept 
them from coming into violent collision. 

The first serious conflict of the antagonistic ex- 
tremes arose contemporaneously with the birth of the 



56 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

kindred ideas of ecclesiastical and political secession. 
I wish you to mark how these ideas were joined to- 
gether in their lirth^ wliere they originated, and how. 
On the first of January, 1831, the first number of 
an abolition sheet, known as the " Liberator," was 
issued from a press in Boston, and was edited by 
AVm. L. Garrison. Mr. Garrison quoted largely from 
the Britisli abolitionists, and even exceeded them in 
the fierceness of his temper and the bitterness of liis 
epithets. In the following year some copies of this 
paper found their way into Georgia, and produced 
ffreat indi2:nation amon^:: our slaveholders. As yet 
the abolitionists had accomplished but little in Xew 
England, and they might, in the course of time, have 
exhausted all their wrath against the institution of 
slavery in a very harmless way, had it not been for 
one of those blunders which seem by some fatality to 
have too often characterized our statesmen and legis- 
lative assemblies. Had our politicians of that day 
looked into their own hearts and studied their own 
passions and their tendencies ; had they considered the 
nature of men in general, they would have known just 
how to deal with Mr. Garrison and his paper : treat 
tkem with perfect silence. This had been a thousand 
times better than to do as they did. The Governor 
of Georgia, in compliance with a resolution of the 
legislature, offered a reward of $5,000 for the apprehen- 
sion^ trials and completion of Garrison under the laws 
of Georgia ! Now if, in Georgia, the " Liberator " was 
an " inflammatory " publication, the reward oflered for 
him, he being a citizen of another state, must have 
been equally so in Massachusetts. Here, then, the 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUKCH. 67 

mighty conflict began. It might have been foreseen 
that this would be regarded as a direct attack made 
by the legislature and goverjior of one state upon the 
freedom of the press in another, and that ten copies 
of the " Liberator " would be read, and ten abolition 
societies formed, where but one of either existed be- 
fore. 'Nor was this the most of that aiiair, for the 
historian informs us that after this, " Garrison left his 
original ground, discarded the protection of law, and 
directed his efforts chiefly to the dissolution of the 
TJnion^ and the overthrow of the civil and religions or- 
ganizations of the country y 

This seems to have been the first conception, in 
New England, of the idea of a dissolution of the po- 
litical Union on account of slavery, and it carried 
along with it as a necessary sequence the idea of ec- 
clesiastical disruption. About the same time, Mr. 
Calhoun, of South Carolina, conceived his grand 
scheme of a Southern Republic. You see then that 
ult7'a-diho\\t\o\\\?>m. and idtrct-])vo^\2i\eYj\^m. jointly 
conc;eiyed, and in widely different localities, gave 
birth to the idea of a» political disunion. But the 
motives were as widely different as the localities and 
principles from which they sprung. The one wished 
to destroy the political Uiiion that he might destroy 
slavery, the other that he might preserve and perpet- 
uate it. See how diverse principles and agencies may 
unite in a common idea ! 

Strange to say, the kindred idea of ecclesiastical se- 
cession originated in the same localities, and seems in 
its very inception to be connected with the same agen- 
cies. This is a fact worthy of deep attention. 
3* 



58 THE SLAVERY C0:N'FLICT AND 

Tliere never was a time when tlic Metliodist Epis- 
copal Churcli would have elected a slaveholder to the 
Episcopal office. Never! All its liistory from the 
begimiiiig, all its enactments on the subject of slavery, 
all the sentiments of the great mass of the ministry 
and membership, were so foreign to such an idea, that 
it was never even deemed necessary to have a written 
rule forbidding such a thing. It was a well under- 
stood and generally admitted fact that this was the 
'prevailing sense of the major portion of the Church. 
The suggestion of '' proscription " and "injustice," 
based, in certain localities, and by a few individuals 
here and tliere throughout the South, on this long- 
standing and acknowledged custom, was itself most 
mi Just 3.11(1 prejposteroiis ; for out of the nine native 
American ministers who had been elevated to the 
episcopal dignity, six of them were from slavehold- 
ing states, and not one of them a slaveholder. The 
historical evidence bearing on the point that it was 
the settled determination of the Churcli never to have 
a slaveholding bishop, is complete and full. "Well, 
with this long-established usage before their eyes, the 
delegates of the South Carolina Conference to the 
General Conference of 1832, earnestly desired that Dr. 
Capers might be elected a bishop. But he was a 
slaveholder^ and this was an insuperable impediment. 
The thing could not he done ! The South Carolina 
preachers muttered their complaints about proscrip- 
tion and injustice, but Dr. Capers did not participate 
in their prejudices, for he afterwards declared that he 
*' should doubt the heart of any southern man who 
would be willing to go to the Korth in the office of a 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 69 

bishop, he owning slaves." But this complaint of 
the South Carolina preachers grew up in the course of 
four years to embody the idea of ecclesiastical seces- 
sion, xinless the old usage were abandoned^ and a 
slaveholder admitted to the office of a 'bisliojp. This 
idea was urged vehemently by Dr. Smith, of Yir- 
ginia, in a circular which he published in 1836. The 
General Conference of 1840 passed, however, and no 
slaveholder was elected, and no attempt Avas made to 
divide the Church. Indeed, the Church had now be- 
come so settled in the great conservative sentiment 
that its most devoted friends began to congratulate 
themselves at the prospect of a long-continued scene 
of prosperity and harmony, that the disturbing in- 
fluences arising from the antagonism of the two ex- 
tremes of abolitionism and proslaveryism were now 
hushed for a long time, if not forever. Little did 
they dream that in four years the storm would burst 
over their heads from a quarter least expected, and 
rend forever the long-cherished unity of their belov- 
ed Methodism ! 

The Southern '^ Advocates," in the latter part of 
1843, began again to agitate the subject of having a 
slaveholding bishop, or, if. this should be denied them 
by the majority, attempting to establish a separate 
organization for the South. The discussion continued 
for some months, and then suddenly ceased. From 
January till May, 1844, the papers maintained a mys- 
terious silence on the subject of slaveholding bishops. 
"What could be the matter? Why, Bishop Andrew 
had married, and become, by his own voluntary choice, 
connected with slavery ! Thus the subject became a 



60 THE SLAVERY CO^'FLICT AND 

test question before the General Conference for the 
iirst time in its history. Kow tliey had to deal with 
it as a fact in connection with the pre-existent senti- 
ment known and admitted as such throughout the 
connection. Dr. Smith, in his circular, had admitted 
it ; Dr. Capers had admitted it ; the very argument of 
the Southern papers admitted it ; all admitted it as 
the prevailing sense of the Church. And to change 
that deep-rooted conviction was now the determination 
of a portion of the Church in the South, or dissolve 
its connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church. 
Here the idea of ecclesiastical secession, originating in 
South Carolina, propped up and rendered clamorous 
by the dominant slave power, liad assumed a formi- 
dable and practical aspect. 

Kow, I think that there was a certain connection 
between this idea of ecclesiastical separation, or seces- 
sion, (for such it was as an ultimatum^ and Mr. Cal- 
houn. I cannot trace it so as to be certain of the 
fact, but the inference rests upon strong circumstan- 
tial o;round.-^. It is known that the three leadino; states- 
men of that day, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, were 
consulted as to the efiect upon the stability of the 
Union, which a division of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church would have. They all agreed that it was a 
step directly toward a dissolution of the great Amer- 
ican Union. Clay and Webster, on this account, de- 
plored any such division, but Calhoun both approved 
and encouraged it, knowing that it tended directly to 
the accomplishment of his own scheme. It is certain 
that Dr. Capers consulted him on this point, and it 
is equally certain that he lent the sanction of his name 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 61 

and great influence to it. In a letter which he is sup- 
posed to have Avritten upon this subject to a distin- 
guished divine of the Sonth Carolina Conference, he 
connects the idea with political secession, and says : 
"A dissolution of the Union will throw the South, 
with Texas affiliated, into a new republic, with Great 
Britain to guarantee its independence." His reasons 
for this guarantee of independence by Great Britain 
were the old " King Cotton " arguments, about which 
we heard so much for some years before the Avar. 
Thus it seems tliat there are good grounds to infer 
that the idea of a division of the Church was con- 
nected in its very inception with Mr. Calhoun and his 
idea of political secession. "When the Church was 
divided the event was hailed by the Governor of 
South Carolina ''as the first dissolution of the 
JJnion^'' so confident were all the ultra-proslavery 
politicians tliat it had this inevitable tendency. So 
these kindred ideas had a common origin both as to 
agency and locality in the South. 

I will now show you how they had a common 
origin in another quarter. In 1834:, two years after 
the first murmur against the old usage was uttered 
in the Church among us, several leading Methodist 
divines of Kew England became abolitionists, and 
agitated the subject in popular assemblies, at camp- 
meetings, and in annual conferences. They read and 
extensively circulated the "Liberator." The result 
was, that a majority of the New England preachers 
became abolitionists, and their doctrine was made 
the test in the election of delegates to the General 
Conference of 1836. They were opposed by Bishops 



62 THE SLAVEKY CONFLICT AND 

Hedding and Emory, and Drs. Fisk and Abel Stevens. 
All the remonstrances of those good men did them no 
good. They rushed madly on, determined, as they 
said, to " split the great Methodist prop to slavery," 
by which they meant the Church. The commotion 
between those abolition preachers with Garrison and 
his paper shows the general disorganizing tendency 
of their views. Thus in Kew^ England and in South 
Carolina these principles and agencies began about 
the same time with that " irrepressible conflict " which 
was to terminate in the present condition of slavery. 

jS'ow what kept the belligerent extremes so long 
asimder? It was the old conservative element at the 
North, with such men as Hedding, Emory, Fisk, 
Stevens, and others at its head. They, in effect, said 
to their Southern brethren, " Let us alone, we will 
tight this battle for you. Nothing that you can say 
or do will satisfy our misguided brethren, who have 
been carried ofl:' by the ultra-abolition mania. They 
consider you as sold to the slave power, and the apol- 
ogists of all its abominations." They did fight that 
battle, and for doing so were reproached as " pro- 
slavery men." But the disaffected party was over- 
thrown at the General Conference, and, unable to 
accomplish their purposes, the principal agitators 
withdrew from the Church. Thus tranquillity was 
restored to our Zion. 

What brought the antagonistic parties in collision 
again ? That fatal and ever-to-be-lamented act of our 
venerable and beloved Bishop Andrew, his voIu)ita?y 
connection with slaver^/. Pre\iously to this he had 
become a slaveholder by bequest and inheritance with- 



ITS EFFECT TPOX THE CHURCH. 63 

out Ill's own choice, but no account was taken of this. 
If the fact was known at the North, as it must have 
been among some of the conservative brethren, it only 
shows \X\Q forhearance of the Church, and its ^\•illing- 
ness to exculpate the bishop of an intention to infringe 
in the least the established usage, and does not show 
any disposition to relinquish the principle, or yield it 
even to the most urgent demands of the proslavery 
party. But when his voluntary choice to infringe 
that principle was made known, when it had become 
apparent to all that he had assumed the res])onsibiliiy 
of making it a practical test question in the General 
Conference, his act became insvfferaljle. His defense, 
which was continued for many days in the General 
Conference, rested chiefly upon the dubious import of 
two words in the second paragraph of the section on 
slaver}^, the words '' traveling preacher." The whole 
plea was that " traveling preacher " included the bishop 
as well as the inferior grades of the ministry, and 
therefore this was the law coverino; his case, and hence 
any act of censure was extra-judicial. But the whole 
language of the Discipline, the usus loquendi of the 
whole Church, were against this construction ; suffi- 
ciently so, at least, to make it extremely doubtful 
without a precedent authoritative construction, and 
by no means as authoritatively binding as the ante- 
cedent ^rac^^^'c^ of the Church. Thirteen annual con- 
ferences all at once assumed that the section on 
slavery was a " compromise," a " treaty," a " compact" 
between the conferences in the slaveholding and the 
non-slaveholding states, while twenty conferences, 
embracing near two thirds of the Church, held that it 



64 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

was a mere concession to the slave jpoirer ibr tlie sake 
of tlie peace and welfare of the Church in tlie South, 
for tlie unrestricted exercise of ministerial functions 
among masters and slaves. And hecause the minority 
had become incensed against the majority forcx]jress- 
ing their " sense " of the conduct of Bishop Andrew 
in the mildest form in which words could express 
that judgment, they determined to withdraw and 
form a separate organization. Thus was the Church 
divided. 

Our people generally do not read history. They 
catch it up from their politicians, newspapers, and 
ministers in detached fragments, and can seldom trace 
the connection of events. When they do read it, it is 
rarely v\^ith a philosophic e} e, looking into first prin- 
ciples and cause?, tracing events from antecedent to 
sequence like the successive links of a chain, through 
a long series which terminate in some great para- 
mount fact. Behold here, my brethren and country- 
men, some of those remote causes which stand indis- 
solubly connected with all the astounding events of 
the past four years. You have here some of the links 
of that hitherto invisible chain of facts which stand 
connected with every ruined city and every devastated 
section and every broken heart and every mutilated 
form in this land of wretchedness and woe ! Brethren, 
I have shown you a history that you never knew be- 
fore. Your politicians hid it from your view when 
they addressed you from the " stump," and only let 
you see enough to inflame your hatred toward the 
Korth, and all for their own ambitious purposes. 
Your secular press would not show you this history, 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 65 

because for the most part it was the mere tool of fac- 
tion ; your religious press could not. because it must 
advocate only such doctrines and detail such facts as 
may suit tlie tastes and contribute to the ends of that 
power which had enslaved it ; your ministers did not 
tell you this history, because many of them were ip-no- 
rant of it themselves, and those who knew it ivould 
not tell you. O that our politicians had been wise 
and disinterested patriots ! O that our Church and 
party organs had taught the people wisdom, stemming 
the tide of unpopularity, biding their time for truth 
to assert and maintain her authority ! O that our 
ministry had taught us like faithful watchman upon 
the walls of Zion ! Tlien had not our feet ruu into 
forbidden paths, and our war-scarred country would 
to-day be free and happy, w^th no signs of ravage and 
desolation around us ! But what, O my heart-stricken 
countrym.en, is the great paramount fact which this 
long and desperate conflict has disclosed? Is it not 
this, we have sinned^ and God has smitten us f O 
hide not the appalling truth from your view. God 
has spoken in the thunder-shock of battle and told us 
that we have sinned. By the triumpli of our foes he 
has cast both the horse and his rider into a dead sleep; 
he has broke the bow and cut the spear in sunder ; he 
has burnt the chariot in the fire, and caused war to 
cease through all this land. And no^^^' he saj^s to us, 
"Be still, and know that I am God ! " He would luive 
us feel and acknowledge that his hand is in our hu- 
miliation, that he hath laid our glory in the dust, and 
all to make us confess that we have sinned. He shows 
us to-day by the light of his marvelous providence 



(j6 the slavery CO^^FLICT AND 

that we have sinned, and by tlie light of history what 
onr Church and ministry have done to bring all this 
ruin u2:)on ns. 

Thirdly, let us mark the efiect which this contest 
has had upon our Church. 

The following may be regarded as the principal 
constituent elements of a prosperous Church : 

1. A sound and liealthy religious literature. 

2. A devoted ministry, preaching the pure Gospel 
of Christ. 

3. A well-instructed and pious membership, walk- 
ijig in all the cominandments and ordinances of the 
Lord Ijlaineless. 

4. The wholesome and salutary education of the 
young. 

By these rules let us try : 

1. Our Literature. 

Tlie Methodist Book Concern of IS'ew York grew 
ui) from a small insic^niiicant be2:innin<x to a o-reat 
mammoth establishment, worth six or seven hundred 
thousand dollars. It disseminated a sound, healthy 
religious literature throughout the whole extent of the 
connection. It was like a great funded charity, dis- 
tributing its annual profits among all the superannu- 
ated ministers, and the widows and the orphans of 
deceased ministers, in a just and equitable ratio, 
throughout the entire connection both north and 
south. JN^ow mark one very significant fact : that Con- 
cern had never published and disseminated any ultra- 
abolition doctrine ; never in a solitary instance that I 
remember. In this particular the Book Concern had 



ITS EFFECT TPON THE CIIUKCII. 67 

given us no cause of offence. Mark again, the re- 
ligious journals — "Advocates" as thej were gen- 
erally called — had never propagated any such doctrine. 
On tlie contrary, they all occupied conservative 
ground, defended the unity of the Church against the 
disorganizing tendencies of the conflicting extremes, 
and contributed all they could to the ultimate over- 
throw of the abolition radicals. Our literature was 
free from the taint of abolition ultraism^ nothing of 
the kind could find its way into the books and period- 
icals of the Church. 

The lamentable separation occasioned a dispute 
about a division of the Church property, we demand- 
ing in particular an equitable partition of the Book 
Concern. I do not say it was not right that we 
should have our just proportion, though in the 
view of the majority there were constitutional diffi- 
culties in the way. The majority could not, by 
agreeing to the plan of separation, bind their con- 
stituents, and the difficulties were not removed. 
"We went before Caesar to claim our share, and he 
granted our request, that is, we sued them at the 
law and recovered our " rights." I do not say it 
was not right for us to sue and recover our property 
if we could get it in no other way, for I will not 
set my judgment against that of the Supreme Court ; 
but in 2:oino: to law with our brethren we went direct- 
\j in the face of a Christian precept. We got our 
portion and then set up for ourselves a publishing 
house in [N^ashville. Now mark another significant 
fact, very significant if we view it in connection with 
the principles we have argued, and the disastrous 



6S THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

results of the late war. We commenced forthwith to 
defend jpTO-sloiverijism ! About a year after the pub- 
lishing house went into operation it isirued Dr. W. A. 
Smith's book on the *' Philosophy and Practice of 
Slavery." In the '' Philosophy " he endeavors to 
prove that slavery — American slavery — is riyht in 
itself^ that it is a divine institution. He says in the 
very outset, '' The position I propose to maintain in 
these lectures is, that slavery ^^/' ,9(? is right ; or the 
great abstract principle of slavery is right." In the 
"Practice" he vindicates the policy of the South, the 
laws on the subject of slavery, on the score of neces- 
sity, and declares that policy to be botli wise and hu- 
mane. Though the lecture on the " Duties of Masters 
to Slaves " contains some excellent suggestions, the 
evil practices of slavery are nowliere set forth in a prom- 
inent light, but are justitied and defended, so far as 
the " southern policy" embraces inherently those evils. 
He admits a pre-exi stent antislavery sentiment 
throughout the South, and avows his intention in the 
" lectures " to eradicate it. In short, the sole purpose 
of the book is to prop up and defend the principle and 
practice of proslaveryism. This book must have had 
a powerful influence over the minds of our ministers, 
for it was hardly two years from the time it was issued 
till tho General Conference struck out of the book of 
Discipline its time-honored declaration against slnvery. 
Through sunshine and storm, amid prosperous and 
adverse scenes, that declaration had stood for a period 
of seventy -four years as a testimony to the Christian 
nations of the earth that the great body of Methodist 
people, even here in the South, stood committed to 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECII. 69 

the gradual mitigation if not final extirpation of tlie 
evil of slavery. But now the Methodist publishing 
house at Eashville stood forth before the world fairly 
committed as the propagandist of proslaverj doctrines. 
That was the last meeting of the General Conference 
of tlie Methodist Episcopal Church, South ! 

2. Let us try our ministry by the rule laid down : 
a devoted rninistry, preaching the jpiire Gospel of 
Christ. Have we been thus devoted ? Have we prac- 
ticed on the motto of our great founder, homo nnius 
libri ? Have we been emphatically n.eu of one Book 
and oiie calling, or have we mixed along with our 
public ministrations the elements of a false moral and 
political philosophy, which have detracted from our 
usefulness and contributed to the present deplorable 
condition of Church and state ? Have we preached 
the pure Gospel of Christ as respects all the relative 
and social duties ? Who among us has ever lifted up 
a true, manly, martyr-like remonstrance against the 
crpng evils of slavery ? There has not been one 
mart}T to the principles of true conservatism. Our 
principles and measures have not tended to preserve 
what was established^ but have tended directly to the 
destruction of both Church and state. I accept the 
light which present events cast upon our past history, 
connecting it with the present, as the great Providen- 
tial teaching. I must accept this or exclude divine 
providence from any share in the events of human 
history, and then my mind would sink into the 
fathomless depths of skepticism. Yet there are men 
among us — if not in the ministry — in the Church and 
in the world, who hate the very name of conservatism 



^0 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

as imphang a base surrender of the very principles of 
our education. Some of our ministers Lave actually 
turned apostles of proslaveryism. Dr. Smith not only 
spoke the substance of his lectures from his chair of 
Moral Pliilosophy to the students of Eandolph Macon 
College, but, as he informs us, " on various popular 
occasions in Virginia and North Carolina." One 
minister, I believe, wrote a book exj^ressly to prove 
that the African race had inherited the curse pro- 
nounced against Canaan, the son of Ham, and that that 
curse was jperjyetual slavery ! 

3. Let us try the Church by the standard laid 
down: a well-instructed and pious memhership^icalk- 
ing in all the commandments and ordinances of the 
Lord hlameless. Have you been properly instructed, 
my brethren ; I mean in respect to this institution of 
slavery ? Have you been taught the real nature in- 
volved in the principles of that institution ? AYere 
you never able to penetrate the deep motives and 
design of the men who taught you that the ]jrinci])le 
and jjractice of slavery were alike right and accept- 
able to God? Did you ever understand how those 
who would persuade you that there was nothing wrong 
in this institution could not remove those irrepressible 
misgivings, those occasional convictions and somber 
forebodings of ill, which would spring up in your 
minds in spite of tlieir arguments i Did any one ever 
faithfully admonish you of those deep-seated inherent 
evils connected \\\i\\ slavery by all the sanctions of 
yjublic law ? Did you ever understand tlie motives 
of those wlio, to perpetuate such an odious system of 
laws, would undermine those civil and religious obli- 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH. 71 

gations which once bound you in affectionate unity to 
the same government and the same Church ? Have 
you, as a Christian people, walked in all the com- 
mandments and ordinances of the Lord ? Have you, 
as giving to your servants the things that are " just 
and equal," in matters of food and clothing, instruc- 
tion and pure morals in their marriage relations and 
their family affections — in all social and relative 
duties ? Have you been hlameless in all these par- 
ticulars ? 

4. Let us apply the rule as regards the instruction 
of our children : a wholesome and salutary education. 
Where have they had it as respects the " peculiar 
institution? " It is my solemn conviction, my breth- 
ren, that we have all been under the influence of a 
most fatal system of education in regard to slavery. 
Our children have grown up under the same in- 
fluences, and have imbibed those principles which 
have resulted in a wide-spread and universal ruin to 
the great and prosperous country we once had. The 
vail of ignorance is still spread over the eyes of the 
great mass of our population, and from many of them 
it will never be removed while they live in this world. 
Let me show you how this false education has been 
most successfully imparted. In most of our colleges 
and High Schools " Wayland's Moral Science " was 
for a long time the text-book in the department of 
moral philosophy. His views on the subject of 
slavery are well known. To counteract their tendency 
a system of strictures was adopted in nearly every 
college. This was the purpose of Dr. Smith's lectures. 
As conservatism had for some years been greatly on 



72 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

the decline in the South before the war, and as prosla- 
vervisni liad become the pievaihng sciitin^ent both in 
Church and s^ate, all our professors in the department 
of Aloral Piiilo30})hy conformed their lectures to this 
domiiumt sentiment. Tiie consequence was that our 
cliildren were trained up to cherish the bitterest en- 
mity toward tlie people of the North, and with all 
their ideas bent in the direction of an ultimate dissolu- 
tion of the Union. Hence, as soon as the war broke 
out, the boys even of the freshman and sophomore 
classes abandoned tlieir studies in numy instances, and 
volunteered to tight the Yankees. An irrepressible 
desire seized upon our youthful population, they threw 
down tlieir text-books and grasped the musket. The 
schools and colleges were nearly all broken up, and 
the cause of education has sufi'ered for four years. 

Xow, look at the effect of this mighty contest upon 
all these elements of prosperity in the Church. Our 
publishing house and Advocates, where are they ? 
Echo answei's. Where/ AVe called upon Ciesar to 
give us our just proportion of the Book Concern ; he 
did so, and now comes to claim it for himself under 
the act of confscaivm. The last of the Advocates, I 
believe, has perished amid those flames of civil war 
which the principles and measures they advocated 
helped to kindle. Look at our ministry! See you 
not the languor, dullness, and insipidity which, ever 
since 1858, have maiked our discourses? See you 
not a marked dejjarture of that demonstration and 
power of the S[»iiit with which we once jU'oclaimed 
the Gospel 'i And what is the state of our Zion I O, 
behold the Churches which have been desecrated, de- 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 73 

molished or forsaken. See the districts, stations, 
missions, and circuits that have been broken up and 
abandoned ! See the deadness and insensibility among 
the membership ! See all over this unhappy land 
how barrenness and blight have come upon the Church ! 
Is she not as a deserted village, as a barren wilderness, 
a blighted vine^^ard, a parched and sun-smitten desert ? 
And where are our schools and colleges ? Not a col- 
lege in operation throughout all this desolated land ! 
The walls of many of them have crumbled to their 
foundations, and nearly all bear some marks of the 
universal ruin ! Dilapidation and decay, dissolu- 
tion, wretchedness, seem stamped upon every interest 
of Christianity! O, that I had every editor and 
every minister, every teacher and member and pupil 
throughout our vast communion before me to-day, 
that I might portray before them the enormity of the 
ruin which the principles we have inculcated have 
brought upon the Church ! I speak not now to the 
few who hear me, but to the Church and to the na- 
tion, trusting that ere long the sentiments may be 
re-echoed by millions of hearts, and that a thousand 
tongues of fire may proclaim them. 

A principle w^as laid down many years ago, by 
one of the most illustrious of our southern statesmen, 
and a declaration based upon it which deserves j)artic- 
ular attention. The principle was this, that slavery 
is an evil, a sm^per se. That man was not a believer 
in tlie Bible ; he was a freethinker, a southern man, a 
slaveholder, and filled successively the chairs of Vice- 
President and President of the United States. That 
man was Tho^las Jefferson, the illustrious father of 
4 



74 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND 

the democratic party, -whose opinions in politics have 
been the standard of southern proslaverj democrats. 
He based his principle not on the Bible, but on his 
first political maxim, that '* all men are created equal," 
equal as to natural right, lie based on this prin- 
ciple the following declaration, which proved pro- 
phetic: "There is no attribute in the divine mind 
which can take sides with the whites in a controversy 
with the races." That prophecy has been fulfilled. 
We all thought that God was with us in the beginning 
of our great struggle. For a long time I thought so 
myself. In nearly all the great battles we were at 
first successful, and my fancy dwelt on many, many 
incidents which I was pleased to note as instances of 
providential interposition in our favor. But we were 
all mistaken. AVhen our every hope had failed us, 
and the whole country was surrendered to the Federal 
army, my mind at once accepted the only solution of 
the great providential problem of the war — God has 
destroyed slavery hecause of our sins i7i connection 
"nyitli it as a system ! I can accept no other solution 
that would not dishonor God. 

Kow, I ask — in view of this prophetic declaration 
of Thomas Jefi^erson, who at best was but a mere 
theist according to nature, but who nevertheless be- 
lieved that the God of nature Avould take the part of 
the oppressed — if ice have not sinned? I ask you in 
view of the argument presented in these two sermons, 
have we not sinned? Have wo not, as the white race 
of this southern clime, sinned ? "\Ve the people have 
sinned because me make our own laws, through our 
representatives, and they have been had laws. All of 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CllUKCH. 75 

US who voted or could mfluence voters have sinued in 
that we failed to make any effort to change those bad 
laws. God has spoken to us in the thunder tones of 
a thousand battles, and told us that we have sinned. 
He now speaks to us by the all-surrounding ruin and 
desolation, and tells us that we have sinned. And 
now, while we writhe and agonize under the appalling 
stroke of his righteous indignation, he tells us, " Be still, 
and know that I am God." 

" But then if we have sinned are we not ruined ? " 
"No ! ]^ot if we repent. Here then I reach my final 
reason for preaching these sermons now. I intimated 
in the outset that there were many grave reasons for 
it. The danger of infidelity was one of them, the 
complaints of some against Providence another, to 
reconcile you to inevitable fate another, to induce 
my hearers to exercise a spirit of submission to the 
Constitution and laws of the Government that has 
subdued them another, to persuade them to act pru- 
dently, so as, if possible, to avert other evils that are 
impending, and to convince them of the evils inherent 
in the system of slavery, as held and practiced by us, 
so they might conscientiously do what they are now 
obliged to, swear to abolish it forever. How any 
honest man, to say nothing of a Christian, can take a 
solemn oath before Almighty God to abolish an insti- 
tution which he believes to be of divine right, and 
reconcile it to his conscience, I am unable to conceive. 
As for myself, if I did not believe that slavery is wrong 
as we have held and practiced it, I would go into exile 
lefore I would take that oath. But the gravest reason 
of all is this : If we ham sinned we must repent. " He 



Y6 THE SLAYEKY CONFLICT AND 

that covereth liis sins shall not i:>rosper ; but whoso 
confessetli and forsaketh them shall have mercy." 
O, let us repent and God will heal onr broken hearts. 
Kow that he, by liis amazing proYidence, has brought 
ns to the verge of poverty and ruin, let us repent. If 
we will but humble ourselves under his mighty hand 
and repent, wliat a happy change shall we behold! 
"We shall be a poorer, but a humbler and hai)pier 
people. It is the broken and contrite heart that God 
will heal and bless ; it is the humble mind in which 
he will set up his abode. Living to labor and satisfy 
the wants of nature, not to grow rich and revel in 
luxury, we shall learn the secret of true happiness, 
sweet contentment. God will be our light and salva- 
tion, and the jieace that passeth imderstanding will 
take the place of carking care. Angry passions will 
be hushed up, all nmrmuring thoughts and vain be 
dispelled from the mind, and grace, rich grace, will 
secretly reign in our hearts through righteousness 
unto eternal life. God's desecrated and forsaken tem- 
ples will be rebuilt and reopened ; thrift and industry 
will soon reappear, and the land, so long desolated 
and trodden down, will smile under the hand of skill- 
ful tillage, while the scliools and colleges, so long shut 
up, will be crowded again with studious youth. A 
pure and blessed Gospel will be proclaimed in our 
midst, the feet of the stricken and afilicted ones shall 
again walk in the way to Zion's hill, and the weary, 
heavv-laden, woe-bcgone spirit find rest in the sanc- 
tuary of God. Then shall we realize the picture of 
the psalm, "There is a river, the streams whereof 
shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH. 77 

tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst 
of her ; she shall not be moved ; God shall help her, 
and that right early." Oh, that blessed river of sal- 
vation shall flow through onr sanctuary again ; its 
heavenly streams, long obstrncted by ignorance and 
folly and sin, shall ponr their living waters through 
our hearts and cleanse all our fl.lth away. Out of our 
inmost souls shall flow that living water in the sanc- 
tuary, in the Sunday school, in the family circle, and 
bring servants and children and neighbors all under 
its hallowed influence. Then shall the revival begin 
that will extend from heart to heart, from family to 
family, from church to church, all over this heaven- 
smitten land, and we shall forget the ill fortune of the 
present in the dawn of a new day of happiness for us 
and our children. And shall these two sermons con- 
tribute anything to a result so glorious ? If so, I send 
them forth on this divine mission. Go, ye little fledg- 
lings of my disenthralled heart, and bear the message 
of out-spoken truth to my weeping countrymen. Bear 
these words that kill and make alive, till every minis- 
ter and member of the Church, feeling their burning 
power, shall rise to a new and holier life. Bear them, 
ye winds, to distant climes, and let the world know 
that free speech has at last attacked the dragon of 
iniquity in the stronghold of its power, even in the 
hearts of my own people, where it had long entrench- 
ed itself in the very guise of innocence ! Go, O ye 
seedlings of precious truth, and let the world know 
that we, the people of the South, conquer even in our 
fall ; that we now subdue all human pride and angry 
passions, and rise to live and live forever ! O, tell 



78 THE SLAVKRY CONFLICT AND 

it out to all mankind, that we are a regenerated nation, 
and liencelbrth will join the universal Chnrcli of the 
Eedeemer in the grand march to tlie millennial day ! 



Almighty and most merciful God, thou art the 
Father of S2)irits, and we are thy oflspriug. Thou 
rulest over all in heaven above and on the earth be- 
neath. Thy 2:)rovidential care is over all thy crea- 
tures, and thou teachest by thy word and providence 
that thou art watchful over them through all the 
e-s-ents of their lives, and art with thy people amid all 
the afflictions which befall them in this world. May 
"we bow in meek submission at thy feet, and, with our 
hearts stilled into awful reverence before thy divine 
majesty, acknowledge that thou alone art God. 
Help us to praise thee, that thou art exalted in all 
the earth, and that thou art the refuge and strength 
of all who jDut their trust in thee. Thou, O great 
and mighty Creator, hast made of one blood all na- 
tions of men to dwell on all tlie face of the eartli ; and 
though it hath pleased thee to ordain various ranks 
and conditions of men in society, and to establish 
various relations among them, appointing some to 
command and others to obey, yet, O just and holy 
God, thou hast taught us tliat with thee there is no 
respect of persons. Thy la\v binds us to love all our 
fellow-men, regardless of their social condition, as 
ourselves, and to do unto all men as we would have 
them do imto us. But, O Lord God most holv, we do 



ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 79 

most truly and Immbly confess before thee, tliat \^e 
have sinned against thy most pure and just law of 
love, in that we have made merchandise of tlie souls 
and bodies of our fellow-men; we have made lavv:: 
which did most cruelly oppress them ; we virtually 
set at naught thy marriage covenant among them, 
and did too often put asunder those whom thou didst 
join together; we shut out the light of knowledge 
from their minds ; we have failed too frequently to 
comply with thy most righteous command to give 
unto them the thmgs that are just and equal ; and we 
have committed many acts of violence and injury 
ao-ainst them. 

o 

And now we beseech thee, O holy and everlasting 
Father, to forgive these our grievous sins and trans- 
gressions, which have provoked thy most just wrath 
and indio^nation against us. "We beseech thee to re- 
move from our eyes the vail of ignorance, and that 
we may see light in thy light. Thou hast sent upon 
us the scourge of war, and we have suffered the spoil- 
ing of our goods ; our land is overrun and devoured ; 
it is so desolate that all who pass by her do mock at 
her. Thy churches have been forsaken, destroyed, 
and desecrated. The remembrance of these our sins 
and transgressions is most grievous unto us, and we do 
repent, and are most heartily sorry for the same. And 
we do beseech thee, O mighty God, holy and ever- 
lasting Father, to mitigate the stroke of thy righteous 
indignation wherewith thou hast stricken us as a 
people who stand condemned and guilty in thy sight. 
Grant that all thy penitent people may this day be- 
lieve in thy most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ 



80 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT. 

our Saviour, that tlirougli liis most precious blood 
tlicy may find forgiveness of sins, and be cleansed 
from all unrigliteonsness. Then, O Father, may the 
ri.er tliat maketh glad the city of our God flow 
through our sanctuaries again ; may its life-giving 
streams flow freely through all our hearts and to all 
our suffering countrymen, cleansing and purifying the 
hearts of all. May thy priests be clothed with the 
robes of holiness ; may Zion awake to put on her 
beautiful garments, and arise from the dust because 
her Light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen 
upon her. Grant this, we beseech thee, O most mer- 
ciful Father, for the sake of our Lord and Saviour 
Jesus Christ. And to thy name, Father, Son, and 
Holy Ghost, be all the praise for ever and ever. 
Amen. 



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